Rebecca Gordon: Going Backwards on Rights with Trump
Centuries of Struggle Undone
George Yancy: Frederick Douglass’s Words Ring True: “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand”
The draconian measures of the Trump administration must be challenged by way of the mass movements that extend beyond the pale of electoral politics.
Larry Levis: Elegy with a Chimneysweep Falling Inside it
If the soul had a written history, nothing would have happened:
A bird would still be riding the back of a horse,
And the horse would go on grazing in a field
Baron Wormser: Prisoners of Virtue
Although the less-than-virtuous, the Toms and Hucks of this world, are constant threats—and thus the grounds for unremitting vigilance, if not outright alarmism—the posse of the virtuous remains snug and smug. Inwardly, they are rigid as dress parade soldiers standing at dutiful attention. Goodness is theirs.
Video: Rhiannon Giddens | Songs that bring history to life
Rhiannon Giddens pours the emotional weight of American history into her music. Listen as she performs traditional folk ballads — including “Waterboy,” “Up Above My Head,” and “Lonesome Road” by … Continue reading
Abby Zimet: America’s Right Wing Is Some Stoked To Erase Our Historical Sins
Biden: “Great nations don’t hide from their history. They acknowledge their past, both the triumphs and the tragedies.”
Video: Why We Must Confront the Painful Parts of US History | Hasan Kwame Jeffries
Revisiting a significant yet overlooked piece of the past, Hasan Kwame Jeffries emphasizes the need to weave historical context, no matter how painful, into our understanding of modern society — so we can disrupt the continuum of inequality massively affecting marginalized communities.
John Greenleaf Whittier: Forgiveness
My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong…
George Yancy: If the State of the World Makes You Want to Scream, You’re Not Alone
We must face the weight of such social evils and be prepared to also face the ways in which we are complicit with them, especially when we are often indifferent.
Earl S. Braggs: Such is the Love Story of Sally
It was not the first time that Thomas Jefferson asked
her to dance.
Abby Zimet: Those Pesky Socialists Claiming There’s Anybody Here But White Men
The supposed dangers of truth-telling about history, even when we aren’t the good guys, is bedrock right-wing rubbish, because of course the truth can be a pain and then you have to learn, change, do better and ewww, who wants to do that?
Video: Chimps have feelings and thoughts. They should also have rights
Chimpanzees are people too, you know. Ok, not exactly. But lawyer Steven Wise has spent the last 30 years working to change these animals’ status from “things” to “persons.”
Phillis Wheatley: To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth
Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Bury Me in a Free Land
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.
